What say this? You don't even know. None of this is close to finalised, after seeing things firsthand.
As it stands right now, everything is so buggy and unbalanced for all classes. The damage nerf to CWs are big, control is overbuffed to the point you could solo epic dungeons. without a sweat. feats are broken and not working. the changes to the other classes are even more crazy right now, and alot of things not working.
Stop panicing.
And these cries of despair is not feedback nor constructive.
All this tells me Grimah is that its even worse than I thought.
It means they didn't think any of this stuff through, they just knee jerked it, based on people whining, didn't think it through, and just threw it out there. Thinking it would "balance" things. And hosed everything up even worse than before.
They apparently had little understanding of how they caused this, with their own PvE content. They had no idea of Class Synergies. Nor how to create them and only end up repeatedly breaking the ones that develop.
It also tells me they haven't learned a **** thing in a year about how this has been such a consistent failure with their constant nerf cycle, and how its have continued to cause the very whining they were trying to stop and didn't solve anything in the end.
If they hadn't messed with this stuff in the first place, they wouldn't be in the shoes they are now. They're not even close to coming to this conclusion either apparently.
And I don't want to have anything to do with this anymore. If they do not and cannot understand the game they are working on, then they are not worth my time or effort.
If the Devs have no idea of whats going on, and more importantly are willing to just knee jerk react, without understanding what it is they're even knee jerk reacting about... then they're never going to get any better.
This was the complete WRONG way to handle everything. And according to Abbadon's figures, its no 25% damage nerf as claimed... for Spellstorm Thaumaturge its a good 70%.
At that rate? Who the hell would ever want to play one again?
They had no clue what they were doing.... did they?
the changes to the other classes are even more crazy right now
I am unsure about this.
While CWs has pages full of nerfing. Almost every feat, encounter. Major nerfs to big hitter powers.
GWFs has some unstopabble nerf. They keep their dps. They have to simply raise some defense+deflect with quickly changing rings in some points of dungeons.
In CN there are 4-5 spots where an expert GWF could die!
HR, GF has buffs as far as I know. They want to put GF back in the PVE game. Which is a good thing btw.
Silverquick, my drop in DPS of 67% was just my initial testing. With the way they have reworked all of the feats and spells I was using, without question, a sub-optimal build. They've slammed some doors but, potentially, opened up others. The Thaumaturge tree has been hit with a sledge hammer, but the Oppressor tree has been pretty impressively buffed. Using different configurations I have been able to recover some of the DPS I lost (up to 50% of my original). With time I may be able to find more. Also there is a definite increase in the control a CW can do now. The chill stacks are crazy effective right now. CW's needed a damage nerf and a control buff so the developers are headed in the right direction. The question is whether they've gone too far in some areas and not enough in others. I think they have, but they have time to make adjustments.
I'm still not thrilled about the changes, but let's see how things shake out in the next month before this goes live.
Let's be honest, the developers can program and create cool worlds but they are not high-end players. All you have to do is watch the livestreams to notice they really don't know what they're doing. They need input from people who are high-end CW's in order to get the balancing right. This is their first pass at it. They're much more likely to take our advice if it is calm and reasoned instead of just claims that they don't know what they're doing or they broke it, or how horrible they are for HAMSTER everything up.
Agreed. The changes are interesting, but CW's will be fine. It's just not EZmode anymore. You can't slot EotS, cast Sing, CoI, throw Shard and Sudden Storm and then lolololol your way to the top.
If anything, these changes will make the class a lot more interesting to play.
And nothing is final until it hits the Live server. Generally they over-tune and the tweak things. I think their philosophy is to start at an outer limit, and work backwards.
But right now, the new Oppressor tree is really, really sweet. It's going to be sad to watch it get nerfed
"Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Silverquick, my drop in DPS of 67% was just my initial testing. With the way they have reworked all of the feats and spells I was using, without question, a sub-optimal build. They've slammed some doors but, potentially, opened up others. The Thaumaturge tree has been hit with a sledge hammer, but the Oppressor tree has been pretty impressively buffed.
Yeah but you shouldn't have to do that.
There was nothing wrong with your build, the fixes to take care of the issue had nothing to do with CWs in the first place and everything to do with the mass mobs and how many we could damage at a time vs the other classes.
It was never the damage that was the problem. The damage decreases the more the mobs decrease... if they really wanted CWs to stop doing that kind of damage, they just needed to decrease the mobs you throw at them.
You shouldn't have to change to a completely different path because your old one was reduced in damage by a good 70%.
That's not an "adjustment"... that's making the game completely unplayable for that path and they should have known better. They broke two paragon paths to do this.
It was overkill. If they really had a problem with it, first of all... stop throwing that many mobs at an AoE class... secondly... they could have just reduced the Shards damage by 25%, it would still remain a capstone Power, they could have made the debuffs not stack anymore... and then just reduced the HV debuff to 5% per stack...
That's all they needed to do... This... was way overdone, its like walking up and trying to sell a guy a candy bar for $500 and then expecting him "bargain" over price.
They needed to start their price a hell of a lot lower to begin with... or its just a deal you walk away from without even considering it.
Ray of Enfeeblement no longer gives the party any kind of benefit so it's pretty much toast as well. As if a wizard uses RoE for their own personal damage lol.
Also, 8 target cap Singularity that takes two seconds to cast? Yeah, sure. I guess that's one way to make sure we use FI instead.
Singularity clearly needed nerfing. It was almost 8% of my overall damage even though it hit 15 targets per cast and I spammed it at least once per pull. So OP?
And yet...Oppressive Force keeps it's infinite target cap. Icy Terrain keeps it's infinite target cap. Interesting choice's there given that Oppressive Force was the true outlier in both damage and target cap. Singularity already had a lot of downsides to using it, and I rarely see overgeared CW bother casting Singularity in PvE anyway in favor of the OF nuke.
Unless they also change how High Vizier's works with Oppressive Force they might as well not even bother. We'll still be able to herd up entire maps worth of add's and nuke them down.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
On this, we completely agree. I will be giving them lots of feedback once I do a thorough testing of all of the spells and feats.
One major bit of feedback will be that they've pretty badly screwed up their goal. They stated in their list of changes that they wanted to make it a hard decision whether a player will opt for more control or more damage when they pick their paragon path. Before, everyone ignored the Oppressor tree since it just stunk. Everyone chose more damage via either the Thaumaturge or Renegade path. So they wanted to make the "control" tree viable and reduce the appeal of the "damage" trees. That's a good goal. But, so far, on the preview server the Oppressor tree offers both the best control and the most damage which makes no sense at all. They were so heavy-handed with the damage trees that the damage trees do less damage than the control tree. If this goes live as is absolutely no one in their right mind will choose the Thaumaturge or Renegade paths.
Once I have concrete numbers on the damage boosts and whatnot of the different trees I'll post them on the feedback thread. But for now I haven't been able to find a higher damaging or more controlling rotation than CoI on tab (applies 1 stack of chill per tick), with Sudden Storm (applies 5 stacks of chill/target on Oppressor tree), Icy Terrain (1 stack of chill/tick), and steal time (total immobilization) along with chilling cloud and ray of enfeeblement for at wills. With all of the stacks of chill targets are frozen in no time and stay that way until dead. I face tanked the Corrupted Bear HE with that build and they couldn't touch me after I got the rotation up and running. I can't solo that one on live because they hit too hard. The downside was it took a long, long time because I just can't damage them very fast. And there aren't any spells that would have changed that as Steal Time actually does more damage than Shard of Avalanche now.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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kieranmtornMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 382Arc User
edited June 2014
I normally play as a Rene-SS-CW (my primary - 15.2k), and having looked and tried out the changes on preview, my tree is no longer viable in pve. Nightmare Wizardry + Phantasmal Destruction looks like it's pointless (never seems to proc), and at those odds I'm not sure if I care. Looks like too many of the useful Renegade feats are pointless/bugged/nerfed. The capstone is interesting, but not enough to waste that many feat points uselessly.
Also as Spell Storm, the key class feature that are useable on Live are EoTS, Sudden Storm, Storm Spell (at least for me). As things are on preview, I can't see even wasting feat points on EoTS now. Now the only reason to remain as Spell Storm is Sudden Storm + Storm Spells, since my critical chances are basically the same without the severity buffs of MoF. So I may have consider changing. Lots of experimenting to do.
Based on my testing, I re-spec'd to Oppressor and saw the same kind of results abaddon523 saw. My damage was basically 40% my Live damage, with total lock down.
One side effect is it will encourage CW's to front load damage (ala Stox's ideas), since recharge times are now rather worse (ie the higher recovery, sustained output option isn't as competitive).
Just my thoughts.
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited June 2014
Really?
I could solo them on Live but with an MoF, but that was using the standard FtF+CoI then Steal and Shards combined with Oppressive. Took a lot of teleporting, but they dropped. Can't make mistakes though, you're right, because they will kill you quick.
When it did it with the standard Spellstorm power builds my burst damage wasn't enough to keep it up. It was only possible with MoF as the DoTs would kick in and kill them over time. They tended to do more damage per cast when they have time to burn.
That part likely won't change.
But your point concerning the One build rules all for Spellstorm is definitely noted, now they're shoving every Spellstorm into a singular path that has NOTHING to do with a Lightning Mage at all but rather a Frost Mage, and on top of that will likely be far inferior to the Master of Flame.
They definitely screwed this one up badly.
EDIT: Either way, unless they reverse course, I'll likely leave the game regardless, I don't like this kind of heavy handed "you will play my way or else policy"... I want nothing to do with that.
Im a renegade spell storm I just got on test and I noticed 2 things right away 1 I joined a group on remo and I was stuck in walking around I couldn't teleport out of the way and that was insta death...2 the changes to chaos magic impacks me greatly ...unlike theurm mages I built mine as a striker class and my damage has gone wayyy down from what I can tell when I could stay alive so I have a couple of suggestions to the devs why not take 4 different mages and look at the impack on them 1 oppressor build ...1 thrum...1 MoTF...and 1 renegade spell storm and look at the data on each and the way the feats effect the power and damage ...because according to the wikki renegades are supposed to do a lot of damage
Wanna bet that,despite all heavy changes, when mod4 launches we won't even get a free retraining token? And with no Zen in the market.................you get the idea.
silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited June 2014
Well I haven't logged in all weekend,
And likely won't again unless this gets removed and reversed.
I have no intention of EVER adapting myself to what someone else wants. Hell I tell the Elitists here to screw off all the time and do it my own way anyway. I consider tactical options, and I am courteous in game.... but never... do things because someone else thinks its "better". Its why I do things outside the norm and succeed all the time and end up making others look like fools.
Did anyone think this would truly be suddenly and mysteriously different when ANYONE tries to shovel their HAMSTER on me?
I don't think they will give back the damage they nerfed atleast not by much.
From what I can discern (by testing the other class changes, I have end-game HR/GF/GWF too) they want other classes to have a desirable spot in a group. If a CW does more damage than a HR or even the same, they would just take the CW over the HR because of the incredible ultility a CW provides. With the idea they have in mind (nerfing dps gwf survivability = an increased need for a tank or CC.) they will probably try and keep CW damage below a HR and GWF.
With the nerfs currently (though it cannot be tested thoroughly) CWs still do more aoe damage than a GWF, from the speed i was able to clear encounters on both class (both equally geared). I will do a few dungeon tests and ACT logs, when the next patch hits to see.
Oh and with the new aoe roots HRs have, without it being feated (3rd tier in ultility tree) its not good enough to keep things in their place, not like a CW can (not including shatter)
I don't think they will give back the damage they nerfed atleast not by much.
From what I can discern (by testing the other class changes, I have end-game HR/GF/GWF too) they want other classes to have a desirable spot in a group. If a CW does more damage than a HR or even the same, they would just take the CW over the HR because of the incredible ultility a CW provides. With the idea they have in mind (nerfing dps gwf survivability = an increased need for a tank or CC.) they will probably try and keep CW damage below a HR and GWF. With the nerfs currently (though it cannot be tested thoroughly)
Lol...
Grimah.... I fail to see how this will remedy the situation...
Looks like they fell for another lie (probably from the rangers)... if you remember right... it was the CW Action Point nerf that came about because we were eliminating the need for a Tank with our CCs... back then it was the CW/TR teams that were ripping places apart. The CWs set up the TRs to just lay waste to things.
I suppose I should be surprised... but... I'm not. Some fools never learn.
I don't think they will give back the damage they nerfed atleast not by much.
From what I can discern (by testing the other class changes, I have end-game HR/GF/GWF too) they want other classes to have a desirable spot in a group. If a CW does more damage than a HR or even the same, they would just take the CW over the HR because of the incredible ultility a CW provides. With the idea they have in mind (nerfing dps gwf survivability = an increased need for a tank or CC.) they will probably try and keep CW damage below a HR and GWF. With the nerfs currently (though it cannot be tested thoroughly)
CWs still do more aoe damage than a GWF, from the speed i was able to clear encounters on both class (both equally geared). I will do a few dungeon tests and ACT logs, when the next patch hits to see.
Oh and with the new aoe roots HRs have, without it being feated (3rd tier in ultility tree) its not good enough to keep things in their place, not like a CW can (not including shatter)
maybe, but CWs always did way more AOE damage than a GWF. But we have alot of damage gain from debuffs (high vizier, assailing, empowerment, nightmare wizardry), which boost them too, closing the gap in dungeons. Those will be gone now. so even with the nerf, the gap shouldn't be too far (in theory). But I'll need to run some dungeon runs to get a better idea (when the new tweaks come out)
maybe, but CWs always did way more AOE damage than a GWF. But we have alot of damage gain from debuffs (high vizier, assailing, empowerment, nightmare wizardry), which boost them too, closing the gap in dungeons. Those will be gone now. so even with the nerf, the gap shouldn't be too far (in theory). But I'll need to run some dungeon runs to get a better idea (when the new tweaks come out)
Grimah,
I'm wondering these days whether you truly play anymore. I'm going to link some things for you in a second. You have no idea what a Destroyer GWF can do.
I've been talking about the Kessel Skirmishes, and how I've been cleaning up on the majority of Spellstorms I go in there with... AS an MoF. Sure I've been beaten by a couple of them, but it wasn't by that much....
What I didn't tell you... is how the Destroyer GWFs are actually managing to beat us BOTH....
I'm going to go upload some things you'll be shocked by...
Guess who always "Destroys" me in the Kessel Skirmishes... (here's a hint... its not Spellstorms)
This is the result of a Destroyer Build GWF. I've run into a good 3-4 of these in there and the result is always the same... the 5-6 million score to my 4 million. I've seen them while I've been doing HEs too, I just didn't realize that's what I was looking at as they were obliterating the field.
I have run into a few of them in Kessels too most of the time I'm seeing Sentinel builds... but trust me... You will know a Destroyer the minute you see one, the mob's health drops like a stone, faster than anything you can do...
There is a reason when I voted in that poll, that its GWFs that have the greatest damage.
The only thing that can repeatedly destroy me by that much... is ... a Destroyer GWF.
You have no idea my friend. I know you've taken a break from the game, and I doubt you're even playing your mage much anymore, but I respect you anyway for the things you've done prior.
But.... You just are not as dialed in as you used to be... and are way behind on what's really going on out there.
No offense, but imho, it isn't meaningful to compete with a canon-deviating class. As we can see, how GWF is implemented in this game is too removed from D&D. It has many supernatural abilities which a canonical D&D fighter should not have. It isn't a D&D class. It is more like something taken from X-Men or City of Heroes. I don't know why WotC allowed this thing to happen, but when you see a class being ill-implemented and is overpowerd in so many ways, you don't waste your time caring about it. Anyway you know it isn't one of the D&D family.
I'm wondering these days whether you truly play anymore. I'm going to link some things for you in a second. You have no idea what a Destroyer GWF can do.
I've been talking about the Kessel Skirmishes, and how I've been cleaning up on the majority of Spellstorms I go in there with... AS an MoF. Sure I've been beaten by a couple of them, but it wasn't by that much....
What I didn't tell you... is how the Destroyer GWFs are actually managing to beat us BOTH....
I'm going to go upload some things you'll be shocked by...
Guess who always "Destroys" me in the Kessel Skirmishes... (here's a hint... its not Spellstorms)
This is the result of a Destroyer Build GWF. I've run into a good 3-4 of these in there and the result is always the same... the 5-6 million score to my 4 million. I've seen them while I've been doing HEs too, I just didn't realize that's what I was looking at as they were obliterating the field.
I have run into a few of them in Kessels too most of the time I'm seeing Sentinel builds... but trust me... You will know a Destroyer the minute you see one, the mob's health drops like a stone, faster than anything you can do...
There is a reason when I voted in that poll, that its GWFs that have the greatest damage.
The only thing that can repeatedly destroy me by that much... is ... a Destroyer GWF.
You have no idea my friend. I know you've taken a break from the game, and I doubt you're even playing your mage much anymore, but I respect you anyway for the things you've done prior.
But.... You just are not as dialed in as you used to be... and are way behind on what's really going on out there.
Show us a result of your CN runs. The gwf does better than a cw when the mob grouping is small. You should always come out ahead in the add infested dungeons. KESSELS, vt and mc, where the mobs are small and the bosses dont really have adds level the playing field
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Show us a result of your CN runs. The gwf does better than a cw when the mob grouping is small. You should always come out ahead in the add infested dungeons. KESSELS, vt and mc, where the mobs are small and the bosses dont really have adds level the playing field
I won't doubt that,
But ... The Kessel Skirmish is a good mix of both AoE encounters and Single Target encounters basically allowing even footing.
.... that is also telling right there as to how the real balance between the two shakes out.
If you're only going to judge on one single dungeon... then you're not looking at the whole picture, which I do not believe Grimah was... and I do not believe he has clear view of this.
The Ranger isn't very good at either one of them as he's a hybrid of both, so excels at neither one of them. I keep telling these guys to use melee and archery togather because those are the Rangers that manage to outdamage me consistently when geared.
maybe, but CWs always did way more AOE damage than a GWF. But we have alot of damage gain from debuffs (high vizier, assailing, empowerment, nightmare wizardry), which boost them too, closing the gap in dungeons. Those will be gone now. so even with the nerf, the gap shouldn't be too far (in theory). But I'll need to run some dungeon runs to get a better idea (when the new tweaks come out)
Actually in Mod 2 GWFS did more damage than CWs....only problem is there are very few top end geared GWFs that actually knew what they were doing, and most GWFs fell far short simply from lack of build/rotation/playstyle. Even with my BIS Rank 7-8 enchant blue pet GWF, I could out DPS most Rank 8-9 BIS epic companion CWs.
In Mod 3 CWs took the lead a bit...in Mod 4 unless they do some significant revamping, GWFs are going to blow CWs out of the water assuming they can stay alive after Unstoppable is nerfed into near obsolescence.
I'm wondering these days whether you truly play anymore. I'm going to link some things for you in a second. You have no idea what a Destroyer GWF can do.
I've been talking about the Kessel Skirmishes, and how I've been cleaning up on the majority of Spellstorms I go in there with... AS an MoF. Sure I've been beaten by a couple of them, but it wasn't by that much....
What I didn't tell you... is how the Destroyer GWFs are actually managing to beat us BOTH....
I'm going to go upload some things you'll be shocked by...
Guess who always "Destroys" me in the Kessel Skirmishes... (here's a hint... its not Spellstorms)
This is the result of a Destroyer Build GWF. I've run into a good 3-4 of these in there and the result is always the same... the 5-6 million score to my 4 million. I've seen them while I've been doing HEs too, I just didn't realize that's what I was looking at as they were obliterating the field.
I have run into a few of them in Kessels too most of the time I'm seeing Sentinel builds... but trust me... You will know a Destroyer the minute you see one, the mob's health drops like a stone, faster than anything you can do...
There is a reason when I voted in that poll, that its GWFs that have the greatest damage.
The only thing that can repeatedly destroy me by that much... is ... a Destroyer GWF.
You have no idea my friend. I know you've taken a break from the game, and I doubt you're even playing your mage much anymore, but I respect you anyway for the things you've done prior.
But.... You just are not as dialed in as you used to be... and are way behind on what's really going on out there.
hmmm ... these are the encounters that you use naturally or you changed circumstantially to the final boss?
gwf x cw is a "dispute" about who burns enemies faster ... and cw takes advantage depending on build / rotation.
ps: never got in kessel to know if things are different out there. is an innocent observation.
As a top shelf PvE SS/Thaum CW-all R10 + 9 epic companions changeable due to dungeon, including lightfoot thief/not making significant difference/, with over 700 runs of CN before/after M3, not to say abt other dungeons, here is what i notice at 3 of top dungeons:
- For CN: at M2 GWF beat me with 2-3 mil regarding my play mood, lag and est. Past M3, if i play focused, I blow away any GWF with more that 5 mil dmg /regarding party ofc- if there are more top CW, difference is ~30%less/.
- For VT: at M2 2-3 mil for GWF, past M3 equal.
- For MC: at M2 ~3 mil for GWF, past M3 i beat with 2-3 mil.
- For Kessel : I beat with 1-2 mil
Not to forget the GWF I compare is also max equipped /R10 + 12 epic companions/, very skilled and experienced. This GWF tried all kind of play styles, tried all kind of combinations of companions, but still i smoke him out.
Edit: Final dps depends pretty much of the connection speed and PC. We both have high speed optical connection + high end gamer PCs.
Regarding the upcoming so called "balancing" and tuning ... CW will be leveled to the ground. Like i wrote in the feedback, if Devs have no ideas, they start to ruin even 1-2 good things at the game, so everyone to be equally happy/sad. It happened to other games, so it will happen here. Characters reach their top and if there is not any development of the content, Devs start to nerf, nerf, nerf so present content to be more challenging ... First was GWF, with a sly move form Devs - they use releasing of M3 and excitement of the players, to reduce the "noise" that GWFs should do when they receive their nerf.
Everyone, playing this game knows, that some classes like GF needs polishing and balancing, but what will happen if other classes than CW receive boost? The content will be less interesting and challenging, any location and dungeon will be like walk in the park. About lack of ideas - just look at the anniversary event. And where is the IWD dungeon?
So will wait and see, sure i will be disappointed, like many others, but even we give tons of ideas to Devs, the result will be the same!
Managed to do CN run on preview.
HR and a GWF could keep up with CWs now with roughly same gear.
I dropped coi for chillstrike but Shard numbers are embarassing. If its not critting than I better use Icy terrain or at-wills...
With the upcoming changes to the Renegade CW tree, Neverwinter has lost it's "fun factor' for me. I just can't have fun anymore, knowing in a couple months my toon will be worthless. I'm losing interest in investing time in this game.
Comments
All this tells me Grimah is that its even worse than I thought.
It means they didn't think any of this stuff through, they just knee jerked it, based on people whining, didn't think it through, and just threw it out there. Thinking it would "balance" things. And hosed everything up even worse than before.
They apparently had little understanding of how they caused this, with their own PvE content. They had no idea of Class Synergies. Nor how to create them and only end up repeatedly breaking the ones that develop.
It also tells me they haven't learned a **** thing in a year about how this has been such a consistent failure with their constant nerf cycle, and how its have continued to cause the very whining they were trying to stop and didn't solve anything in the end.
If they hadn't messed with this stuff in the first place, they wouldn't be in the shoes they are now. They're not even close to coming to this conclusion either apparently.
And I don't want to have anything to do with this anymore. If they do not and cannot understand the game they are working on, then they are not worth my time or effort.
If the Devs have no idea of whats going on, and more importantly are willing to just knee jerk react, without understanding what it is they're even knee jerk reacting about... then they're never going to get any better.
This was the complete WRONG way to handle everything. And according to Abbadon's figures, its no 25% damage nerf as claimed... for Spellstorm Thaumaturge its a good 70%.
At that rate? Who the hell would ever want to play one again?
They had no clue what they were doing.... did they?
I am unsure about this.
While CWs has pages full of nerfing. Almost every feat, encounter. Major nerfs to big hitter powers.
GWFs has some unstopabble nerf. They keep their dps. They have to simply raise some defense+deflect with quickly changing rings in some points of dungeons.
In CN there are 4-5 spots where an expert GWF could die!
HR, GF has buffs as far as I know. They want to put GF back in the PVE game. Which is a good thing btw.
I'm still not thrilled about the changes, but let's see how things shake out in the next month before this goes live.
Let's be honest, the developers can program and create cool worlds but they are not high-end players. All you have to do is watch the livestreams to notice they really don't know what they're doing. They need input from people who are high-end CW's in order to get the balancing right. This is their first pass at it. They're much more likely to take our advice if it is calm and reasoned instead of just claims that they don't know what they're doing or they broke it, or how horrible they are for HAMSTER everything up.
Agreed. The changes are interesting, but CW's will be fine. It's just not EZmode anymore. You can't slot EotS, cast Sing, CoI, throw Shard and Sudden Storm and then lolololol your way to the top.
If anything, these changes will make the class a lot more interesting to play.
And nothing is final until it hits the Live server. Generally they over-tune and the tweak things. I think their philosophy is to start at an outer limit, and work backwards.
But right now, the new Oppressor tree is really, really sweet. It's going to be sad to watch it get nerfed
Yeah but you shouldn't have to do that.
There was nothing wrong with your build, the fixes to take care of the issue had nothing to do with CWs in the first place and everything to do with the mass mobs and how many we could damage at a time vs the other classes.
It was never the damage that was the problem. The damage decreases the more the mobs decrease... if they really wanted CWs to stop doing that kind of damage, they just needed to decrease the mobs you throw at them.
You shouldn't have to change to a completely different path because your old one was reduced in damage by a good 70%.
That's not an "adjustment"... that's making the game completely unplayable for that path and they should have known better. They broke two paragon paths to do this.
It was overkill. If they really had a problem with it, first of all... stop throwing that many mobs at an AoE class... secondly... they could have just reduced the Shards damage by 25%, it would still remain a capstone Power, they could have made the debuffs not stack anymore... and then just reduced the HV debuff to 5% per stack...
That's all they needed to do... This... was way overdone, its like walking up and trying to sell a guy a candy bar for $500 and then expecting him "bargain" over price.
They needed to start their price a hell of a lot lower to begin with... or its just a deal you walk away from without even considering it.
Also, 8 target cap Singularity that takes two seconds to cast? Yeah, sure. I guess that's one way to make sure we use FI instead.
Singularity clearly needed nerfing. It was almost 8% of my overall damage even though it hit 15 targets per cast and I spammed it at least once per pull. So OP?
And yet...Oppressive Force keeps it's infinite target cap. Icy Terrain keeps it's infinite target cap. Interesting choice's there given that Oppressive Force was the true outlier in both damage and target cap. Singularity already had a lot of downsides to using it, and I rarely see overgeared CW bother casting Singularity in PvE anyway in favor of the OF nuke.
Unless they also change how High Vizier's works with Oppressive Force they might as well not even bother. We'll still be able to herd up entire maps worth of add's and nuke them down.
On this, we completely agree. I will be giving them lots of feedback once I do a thorough testing of all of the spells and feats.
One major bit of feedback will be that they've pretty badly screwed up their goal. They stated in their list of changes that they wanted to make it a hard decision whether a player will opt for more control or more damage when they pick their paragon path. Before, everyone ignored the Oppressor tree since it just stunk. Everyone chose more damage via either the Thaumaturge or Renegade path. So they wanted to make the "control" tree viable and reduce the appeal of the "damage" trees. That's a good goal. But, so far, on the preview server the Oppressor tree offers both the best control and the most damage which makes no sense at all. They were so heavy-handed with the damage trees that the damage trees do less damage than the control tree. If this goes live as is absolutely no one in their right mind will choose the Thaumaturge or Renegade paths.
Once I have concrete numbers on the damage boosts and whatnot of the different trees I'll post them on the feedback thread. But for now I haven't been able to find a higher damaging or more controlling rotation than CoI on tab (applies 1 stack of chill per tick), with Sudden Storm (applies 5 stacks of chill/target on Oppressor tree), Icy Terrain (1 stack of chill/tick), and steal time (total immobilization) along with chilling cloud and ray of enfeeblement for at wills. With all of the stacks of chill targets are frozen in no time and stay that way until dead. I face tanked the Corrupted Bear HE with that build and they couldn't touch me after I got the rotation up and running. I can't solo that one on live because they hit too hard. The downside was it took a long, long time because I just can't damage them very fast. And there aren't any spells that would have changed that as Steal Time actually does more damage than Shard of Avalanche now.
Also as Spell Storm, the key class feature that are useable on Live are EoTS, Sudden Storm, Storm Spell (at least for me). As things are on preview, I can't see even wasting feat points on EoTS now. Now the only reason to remain as Spell Storm is Sudden Storm + Storm Spells, since my critical chances are basically the same without the severity buffs of MoF. So I may have consider changing. Lots of experimenting to do.
Based on my testing, I re-spec'd to Oppressor and saw the same kind of results abaddon523 saw. My damage was basically 40% my Live damage, with total lock down.
One side effect is it will encourage CW's to front load damage (ala Stox's ideas), since recharge times are now rather worse (ie the higher recovery, sustained output option isn't as competitive).
Just my thoughts.
I could solo them on Live but with an MoF, but that was using the standard FtF+CoI then Steal and Shards combined with Oppressive. Took a lot of teleporting, but they dropped. Can't make mistakes though, you're right, because they will kill you quick.
When it did it with the standard Spellstorm power builds my burst damage wasn't enough to keep it up. It was only possible with MoF as the DoTs would kick in and kill them over time. They tended to do more damage per cast when they have time to burn.
That part likely won't change.
But your point concerning the One build rules all for Spellstorm is definitely noted, now they're shoving every Spellstorm into a singular path that has NOTHING to do with a Lightning Mage at all but rather a Frost Mage, and on top of that will likely be far inferior to the Master of Flame.
They definitely screwed this one up badly.
EDIT: Either way, unless they reverse course, I'll likely leave the game regardless, I don't like this kind of heavy handed "you will play my way or else policy"... I want nothing to do with that.
This ^^
and this
(I used to play TR)
And likely won't again unless this gets removed and reversed.
I have no intention of EVER adapting myself to what someone else wants. Hell I tell the Elitists here to screw off all the time and do it my own way anyway. I consider tactical options, and I am courteous in game.... but never... do things because someone else thinks its "better". Its why I do things outside the norm and succeed all the time and end up making others look like fools.
Did anyone think this would truly be suddenly and mysteriously different when ANYONE tries to shovel their HAMSTER on me?
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?692711-Official-Feedback-Thread-Control-Wizard-Changes/page13&p=8241361&viewfull=1#post8241361
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
They're going to need to come a long ways back from what they currently have planned. They need to seriously rethink, well... just about everything.
From what I can discern (by testing the other class changes, I have end-game HR/GF/GWF too) they want other classes to have a desirable spot in a group. If a CW does more damage than a HR or even the same, they would just take the CW over the HR because of the incredible ultility a CW provides. With the idea they have in mind (nerfing dps gwf survivability = an increased need for a tank or CC.) they will probably try and keep CW damage below a HR and GWF.
With the nerfs currently (though it cannot be tested thoroughly) CWs still do more aoe damage than a GWF, from the speed i was able to clear encounters on both class (both equally geared). I will do a few dungeon tests and ACT logs, when the next patch hits to see.
Oh and with the new aoe roots HRs have, without it being feated (3rd tier in ultility tree) its not good enough to keep things in their place, not like a CW can (not including shatter)
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Lol...
Grimah.... I fail to see how this will remedy the situation...
Looks like they fell for another lie (probably from the rangers)... if you remember right... it was the CW Action Point nerf that came about because we were eliminating the need for a Tank with our CCs... back then it was the CW/TR teams that were ripping places apart. The CWs set up the TRs to just lay waste to things.
I suppose I should be surprised... but... I'm not. Some fools never learn.
This might be due to the ArP changes being slightly bugged on the current patch: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?694431-Stacked-DoTs-Powers-also-stack-ArPen
I'm not sure, but once that fix goes on preview maybe try again to see if its the same?
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Grimah,
I'm wondering these days whether you truly play anymore. I'm going to link some things for you in a second. You have no idea what a Destroyer GWF can do.
I've been talking about the Kessel Skirmishes, and how I've been cleaning up on the majority of Spellstorms I go in there with... AS an MoF. Sure I've been beaten by a couple of them, but it wasn't by that much....
What I didn't tell you... is how the Destroyer GWFs are actually managing to beat us BOTH....
I'm going to go upload some things you'll be shocked by...
Guess who always "Destroys" me in the Kessel Skirmishes... (here's a hint... its not Spellstorms)
This is the result of a Destroyer Build GWF. I've run into a good 3-4 of these in there and the result is always the same... the 5-6 million score to my 4 million. I've seen them while I've been doing HEs too, I just didn't realize that's what I was looking at as they were obliterating the field.
I have run into a few of them in Kessels too most of the time I'm seeing Sentinel builds... but trust me... You will know a Destroyer the minute you see one, the mob's health drops like a stone, faster than anything you can do...
There is a reason when I voted in that poll, that its GWFs that have the greatest damage.
The only thing that can repeatedly destroy me by that much... is ... a Destroyer GWF.
You have no idea my friend. I know you've taken a break from the game, and I doubt you're even playing your mage much anymore, but I respect you anyway for the things you've done prior.
But.... You just are not as dialed in as you used to be... and are way behind on what's really going on out there.
Show us a result of your CN runs. The gwf does better than a cw when the mob grouping is small. You should always come out ahead in the add infested dungeons. KESSELS, vt and mc, where the mobs are small and the bosses dont really have adds level the playing field
I won't doubt that,
But ... The Kessel Skirmish is a good mix of both AoE encounters and Single Target encounters basically allowing even footing.
.... that is also telling right there as to how the real balance between the two shakes out.
If you're only going to judge on one single dungeon... then you're not looking at the whole picture, which I do not believe Grimah was... and I do not believe he has clear view of this.
The Ranger isn't very good at either one of them as he's a hybrid of both, so excels at neither one of them. I keep telling these guys to use melee and archery togather because those are the Rangers that manage to outdamage me consistently when geared.
Actually in Mod 2 GWFS did more damage than CWs....only problem is there are very few top end geared GWFs that actually knew what they were doing, and most GWFs fell far short simply from lack of build/rotation/playstyle. Even with my BIS Rank 7-8 enchant blue pet GWF, I could out DPS most Rank 8-9 BIS epic companion CWs.
In Mod 3 CWs took the lead a bit...in Mod 4 unless they do some significant revamping, GWFs are going to blow CWs out of the water assuming they can stay alive after Unstoppable is nerfed into near obsolescence.
hmmm ... these are the encounters that you use naturally or you changed circumstantially to the final boss?
gwf x cw is a "dispute" about who burns enemies faster ... and cw takes advantage depending on build / rotation.
ps: never got in kessel to know if things are different out there. is an innocent observation.
- For CN: at M2 GWF beat me with 2-3 mil regarding my play mood, lag and est. Past M3, if i play focused, I blow away any GWF with more that 5 mil dmg /regarding party ofc- if there are more top CW, difference is ~30%less/.
- For VT: at M2 2-3 mil for GWF, past M3 equal.
- For MC: at M2 ~3 mil for GWF, past M3 i beat with 2-3 mil.
- For Kessel : I beat with 1-2 mil
Not to forget the GWF I compare is also max equipped /R10 + 12 epic companions/, very skilled and experienced. This GWF tried all kind of play styles, tried all kind of combinations of companions, but still i smoke him out.
Edit: Final dps depends pretty much of the connection speed and PC. We both have high speed optical connection + high end gamer PCs.
Regarding the upcoming so called "balancing" and tuning ... CW will be leveled to the ground. Like i wrote in the feedback, if Devs have no ideas, they start to ruin even 1-2 good things at the game, so everyone to be equally happy/sad. It happened to other games, so it will happen here. Characters reach their top and if there is not any development of the content, Devs start to nerf, nerf, nerf so present content to be more challenging ... First was GWF, with a sly move form Devs - they use releasing of M3 and excitement of the players, to reduce the "noise" that GWFs should do when they receive their nerf.
Everyone, playing this game knows, that some classes like GF needs polishing and balancing, but what will happen if other classes than CW receive boost? The content will be less interesting and challenging, any location and dungeon will be like walk in the park. About lack of ideas - just look at the anniversary event. And where is the IWD dungeon?
So will wait and see, sure i will be disappointed, like many others, but even we give tons of ideas to Devs, the result will be the same!
HR and a GWF could keep up with CWs now with roughly same gear.
I dropped coi for chillstrike but Shard numbers are embarassing. If its not critting than I better use Icy terrain or at-wills...